Convicted serial killer, rapist sentenced to 160 years in prison – NJ.com

Khalil Wheeler-Weaver, a 25-year-old convicted serial killer, spoke for the first time Wednesday before a judge sentenced him to 160 years for murdering three women in 2016, desecrating their remains and brutally raping another victim who escaped.

“My heart goes out to the families…,” said Weaver as he stood in Superior Court of Essex County before a judge, at times his voice barely discernable. “However I was not the person who committed these crimes.”

“I was set up, I was lied on and framed by the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office.”

The sole surviving victim, Tiffany Taylor, begged to differ. She sat just feet away from him in the Newark courtroom on Wednesday and during her hours-long testimony during trial two years ago, when she described in harrowing details how he raped her and attempted to strangle her to death.

“As far him saying that he still didn’t do it, it makes me feel like he has no type of remorse about it at all,” said Taylor, who granted NJ Advance Media permission to identify her despite being a victim of sexual assault. “Like, he hasn’t even shed a tear about anything. So he’s not sorry at all about what he did. I’m over 100 percent sure it was him.”

Wheeler-Weaver, who was living in Orange at the time of the murders, intends to file an appeal of his conviction.

But on Wednesday, for the time being, there was no more debating his innocence. A jury in 2019 found him guilty on all 11 charges he went up against, including three counts of murder and desecration of human remains, attempted murder, two counts of aggravated sexual assault, aggravated arson and kidnapping.

His victims were all women, most of them marginalized by society.

They were Sarah Butler, 20, Robin West, 19, and Joanne Brown, 33. Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Adam Wells previously said West, Brown and Taylor would do sex work for money in order to survive and were all homeless at one point.

The mother of West knew a different version of her daughter that may have not been emphasized during trial. She remembered her daughter dancing and singing in church before she started going down a different path as a teen.

“She will forever be and is my middle child,” said Anita Mason. “She loved music, loved to dance, loved to sing, loved her family, loved little children, loved elderly people, she loved dogs and all living in things. Early in life, she expressed the desire to join the air force because she loved planes – or to be a veterinarian because she loved dogs.”

West had to be identified by dental records after Wheeler-Weaver burned her body in an abandoned Orange home, prosecutors said during the trial.

“Robin Daphne Michele West did not — and I repeat — did not deserve to be strangled to death and set on fire to be left in a house, weighing over a little 60 pounds due to the destruction of that fire,” West’s mom continued. “Questions in my head: Was she alive? Did she fight? What were her last words?”

Prosecutors never said Butler, of Montclair, did sex work in the past, but that Wheeler-Weaver pressured her to do so after connecting with her on a social media app, Tagged. Her family spoke of the holidays they won’t be able to experience with Butler.

“I hope you find it in your heart that you can give him the longest maximum sentence,” said her dad, Victor Butler. “And I hope that he lives for a very long time and they make him suffer every night in there like he made our girl suffer.

He turned to Wheeler-Weaver and said, “I hope you suffer, boy, every night.”

Butler’s body was found in Eagle Rock Reservation, covered under some branches. Wheeler-Weaver was found to have strangled her using her sweatpants leg, the judge said Wednesday.

No one was present to speak on behalf of Brown, one of the oldest victims at the time of her death, who was was found dead in a vacant Orange home with tightly wrapped duct tape around her mouth and face. But the prosecutor, Wells, said was equally loved by her family and friends.

“She struggled throughout her life with homelessness, mental illness and poverty,” Wells said. “And nonetheless, and as I think we all see by observing this entire case…each life in this case mattered. Each of these victims mattered.”

Wheeler-Weaver’s mother, aunt and brother were present at the sentencing, but they declined to speak before the judge. The brother at one point shortly after the judge handed down the 160-year sentence tried to get up and leave but was instructed by a sheriff’s officer not to.

His public defender asked the judge for leniency based on his age and pointed out he had no prior convictions. Wheeler-Weaver won’t be eligible for parole until after 140 years.

Superior Court Judge Mark Ali said the purpose of the sentence was to ensure that Wheeler-Weaver “never walk among free society again.”

Assistant Prosecutor Mira Ohm, who also tried the case, said she couldn’t emphasize enough how much the surviving victim made a difference in the case. She also thanked those who knew Butler, who helped lure Wheeler-Weaver to police by setting up a fake social media account.

She said Wheeler-Weaver’s family offered support to the families of the victims during the trial.

“Their suffering is also respectful of the surviving family members,” she said during a press conference after the sentencing.

Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore Stephens II noted that about 45% of the approximately 89,000 missing persons in the United States are people of color. This case stood out, he said, because it got the appropriate attention from his office, the media and community members stepped in to help.

Yet, there could possibly be more victims by the hands of Wheeler-Weaver, Stephens said. He did not give many details.

“There certainly could possibly be others,” Stephens said when asked about it. “In fact, there’s another case, at least one, that we’re looking at with a possible tie-in.”

Local journalism needs your support. Subscribe at nj.com/supporter.

Rebecca Panico may be reached at rpanico@njadvancemedia.com.